I hope you realize that by starting this thread you have earned yourself a permanent place at the "WOEWITWISTFT" ("What On Earth Was I Thinking When I Started THAT FIRST Trend?") table. It's members are few, but the conversation is the most honest and amusing in the entire place. ;) - Jessica Boucher [more]

Ken, you have very lofty goals for yourself and for society as a whole. I truly admire your writing. I'm glad you share it with us. Contrary to popular belief, I actually quite enjoy thinking about these types of things every once in a while.

While your goal is lofty, it is not unattainable. That is, if we can get everyone to work towards a common goal. Dave spoke a bit about this at the Hawaii Regional. If anyone has video of his speech, I think it would be a great asset to this discussion. He pointed out how FIRST helps to bridge gaps between so many different types of people with different backgrounds--religiously, economically, politically, socially, geographically, etc.

However, as you said, once you take FIRST out of the equation the "real," or "non-FIRST" world is a completely different atmosphere. There are people out there who seemingly try to corrupt everything for which humans have worked.

Now, I'm speaking completely from my observations (and mind you, I'm only a 16 year old high school junior who still has much to learn of the world). Humans, in general, tend to be self-centered. As problems such as starvation and disease continue to ravage much of the world, those of us that are "okay" continue to live a "normal" life. Not until tragedy strikes us do we pull together and work as one towards a common goal--look at 9/11 or the events that occurred at Virginia Tech last year. A nation that had been somewhat divided suddenly bonded together to support each other. But even then, we think that each rough spot will pass away, but, in the end, only people pass away.

If only such a thing was possible in times of peace, when no tragedy has struck and all is relatively peaceful. Though things may not be as tumultuous as before, prejudice still exists in America, as much as people like to think it doesn't. If people could learn to look past their prejudice, perhaps we could solve some of the world's larger problems. I could sit here and rattle off a list of disease to which cures have not been found, or countries where clean, healthy drinking water is still not available. But for some, these problems seem too remote, too unreal for them to really do anything about it. As Albert Camus put it brilliantly in his novel The Plague, "What are a hundred million deaths? [...] Since a dead man has no substance unless one has actually seen him dead, a hundred million corpses broadcast through history are no more than a puff of smoke in the imagination." Despite this difficulty in understanding, there should still be awareness.

There should still be a fight.

The main lesson I think people need to learn is that we're all in this together. Whether or not we like to admit it, we could get cancer just as easily as the homeless man begging on the street corner can. Often, we look at problems and think, "That can never happen to me!" But then it does. And only then does it become our problem. We almost always put ourselves first, which is quite understandable. Ken, you mentioned listening to the radio station that raised money for Leukemia and Lymphoma. Those people who donated are exceptions to much of what the rest of society believes. Most people would disregard those issues, instead spending those $20 or so towards a new gadget or a designer item of clothing, disregarding those that are often essentially being given a death sentence when they contract such illnesses.

Misfortune disregards social, economic, racial, and political status. It does not care if you have 4 kids, a wife, or no family at all.

And Ken, as you beautifully pointed out, we must put up a fight, even if we know the effects will not always be permanent. Evil will always exist, whether as a tyrannical leader, or as a newly-discovered disease, it will always remain a part of the human race. But that doesn't matter. There must always be a fight. As you pointed out "if going through fire could’ve raised a thousand more dollars, isn’t it worth running into the fire?" If we can save 1 life out of 10, won't that make the fight worth it?

I leave you with yet another quote from Albert Camus's The Plague (blame my AP English teacher for assigning a research paper on a European author of our choice).

"We must aspire beyond ourselves toward that high and fearful vision. And on that lofty plane all will fall into place, all discords be resolved, and truth flesh forth from th dark cloud of seeming injustice."

If we can learn to set aside our differences to work toward that goal, we might just reach it.

I could not agree more with Ken when he says we should strive to "hold onto one another with one arm, and with the other, touch the stars in the heavens."

My apologies if this post seemed disorganized or a bit long. That's what happens when I get thinking, and I'm unfortunately not nearly as eloquent as Ken.

Excuse me for my long winded rant as sometimes you stir the passions in me with your loooonnngggg writings.

Steve, you and I have no bones to pick with each other. We basically both agree on the same thing, just from different side of the balance.

The people who work day after day are extremely important in realizing the dreams and ideas that a few individuals thought of. I am just saying I don't think I am must suitable for such a role. I need to do my writing, and I need to think of impossible ideas. (By the way, my search have not been in vain. I am homing in a few ideas that I am particularly fond of, I just need to have the discipline/patience to research more and put those ideas into papers)

The bottom line is, I don't think you want the world only with people just like you, and I certainly don't want to world only with people just like me. Here is a slightly different version of your analogy of a carpenter:

A leader without followers is just a guy out taking a walk.

By the way, here is a note from a rep point I got for this post:

With one arm we will hold onto one another…
And get a yellow card for entanglement ... :-)

Ken I agree that we are both seeing the same ending from different points of view. That is the reason that I posted. If I thought for a moment that we had issues I would do so person to person. The reason that I posted a sI did was that sometimes we look too hard for something that is right there in front of us (ask my wife). Some of the greatest ideas came from someone getting a brain flash while doing something completely different. Many times the way to find the answer is to walk away and do other things and all of a sudden it comes to us.

It is encouraging to know that you have ideas on the burner and that you know why you are were you are now. It seems that there is a candle at the end of your tunnel so now you need to stop resting and run towards it. My only advice is don't be a moth, stop before you run into the flame and test enjoy the glow.

Please keep up the great posts. As you can tell, there are a great number of people that love to read what you have to say.

__________________We do not stop playing because we grow old;
we grow old because we stop playing.

My apologies if this post seemed disorganized or a bit long. That's what happens when I get thinking, and I'm unfortunately not nearly as eloquent as Ken.

Excellent post, Alexa! I would not have been able to write something as good when I was your age.

Figuring out exactly what I want to say has always been difficult for me. At the beginning of the writing process, all I have is pages and pages of notes of all kinds of things I want to say, most of which will get deleted during the writing process. During this process I try to see through these massive amount of notes to understand what's truly important to me, and what will be left later for another piece.

Then I take a look at what I have left, and do it all over again until I have a basic outline. That's when the trouble starts because the outline usually feels hallow when I try to convince myself there is a speech in there. It might have felt good when I put together the outline, but I don't always remember the substances I wanted to fill the outline with. Other times the outline don't look so good and have to be rewritten to fit the substances.

So, what you get is this seesawing process that goes back and forth between the outline and the substances, and you keep working it and hope that eventually you will reach a point of equilibrium where both the outline and the substances agree with each other, and you will be able to fine tune the words until everything looks really good.

What you see is draft #6 after an outline was put together from lots of notes. It took me a total of 10 days to complete the entire process. That's not to mention the months before this piece, the time I spent to experience life and all the things it threw at me. I have absolutely no control over how much experience is enough for me to be able to write something, and I can't force it neither, which is why writing is always a scary thing... I never know if I can make it until the very end.

Great thoughts from a true legend of the FIRST community. Always good to see you here Ken...

Ya know...this is a crazy world that we live in, and we do need to set lofty goals to achieve the impossible. Sometimes we are just blinded by the perils of the now so heavily, that we do not sit back, close our eyes, and realize that with patience and will, we can change the world and breed happiness.

Failure is nothing to fear, sadness is nothing to fear, and even all the political garbage in the world is nothing to fear...I think in the movie Pushing Tin, John Cusack put it best "In order to gain control, you gotta lose control."